On Ash Wednesday I made the spontaneous decision to write a blog post every day for 40 days during Lent. At the time this seemed like a brilliant idea. After a busy season of writing Bible study curriculum, blogging every day seemed like just the creative antidote I needed. Also, I was out of the habit of journaling our family’s life, so this would be the perfect chance to catch up. And what better time to make a more dedicated effort to documenting my spiritual journey than Lent?
Today is the 40th day of my Lenten commitment, and I regretted making that promise every single one of those 40 days. Posting a blog every day was hard. Life got in the way every single one of these 40 days. Mostly, I was busy writing other projects, and those seemed to use up all my words. The kids were home for Spring Break and my brain didn’t have the quiet space to string together two sentences, let a lone a blog entry. Also in the span of these past six weeks we dealt with a family-wide stomach flu, a juice fast, and Mike traveling for work.
Some nights I wouldn’t start the blog entry until after 10, which is pretty much the middle of the night for me. Every single day I wanted to flake out and repost an old entry, or just a picture. Every single day I stared at my computer and imagined the 12 other projects I should be getting done. If I had made the commitment to stare out the window for 40 straight days, I would have ROCKED it.
But even as I was cursing my own stupidity to make a commitment like this, my subconscious was also waking up. As anyone who has ever had to sit down and write something that seemed impossible can tell you, an inspiration would finally begin to stir, deep in my psyche.
Finally those creative juices would start to trickle around, pushing through the dirt and grime that had caked up in the past 24 hours, and a crappy rough draft would come. Now the writer’s block was disappearing, and I could see the point of the post. Now I was excited about what I was learning from my deeply-buried thoughts.
Isn’t this the sneaky way discipline always works? Giving up Diet Coke, writing every day, waking up early to work out, and finishing huge work projects–I’m looking at you. We all hate the confining structure of any commitment. Our ragged, tired selves complain we cannot keep this up. We want to cheat, rebel, give up.
But it’s always in that moment of resignation that relief comes. Relief comes through the Holy Spirit, your own work ethic, a reminder about why you made this stupid commitment, sheer stubbornness. And then, success. Finished for another day. Who knew it was possible?
If you’ve given something up for Lent, or taken something on, welcome to Holy Week. What did you learn about yourself? What did you learn about God? What did you learn about sacrifice and discipline? How did these 40 days change you?
For me, I learned how weak my flesh can be when I’m under a lot of pressure. I learned prayer helps every single time. I also relearned how much I love blogging. I recommitted myself to writing here much more regularly.
But first, I think I’ll take a day off.
